Knowing
by Sinfa
Summary: Ino becomes endeared and drawn to Naruto after secretly discovering he is actually a girl. With Naruto unaware her secret is out, Ino dose her best to support her from the sidelines and leaves everyone confused and wondering what Ino suddenly sees in the dead last dolt. fem!Naruto


**Knowing**

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 **Author Notes:**

I have been wanting to write a Ino/Naruko story now for years and decided, why not just do it? Well I didn't have any good reason to say no, so here is the first chapter. I never liked Ino when I first watched the anime/read the manga, but that was only because she was not a main character and I thought she was superficial and vain. But the truth is she is a very compassionate girl with a heart of gold and it showed with how she supported Sakura when she was being bullied and became friends. She did not deserve the betrayal Sakura later gave her when she declared Ino her love rival for Sasuke. This fic is sort of my apology to Ino, she is a girl deserving better then to be judged simply by her outward appearance. (Though in this case Naruko is the one being judged, but that's just splitting hairs!) On with the fic!

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 **Chapter One: No way…**

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"What? No way! I'm not going to do that, are you kidding me?" Ino was aghast at the cruel suggestion she had just heard. To use her Shintenshin no Jutsu as a prank on Naruto and make him do something ridicules enough to get him yelled at by Iruka- sensei. It wasn't cruel what they wanted her to do, no it was cruel that they actually expected her to willing go inside that dolts head! Who the hell would ever want to do that!?

"Come on, it's not like it's going to hurt anyone." Shikamaru suggested lazily and sounded even more bored and uninterested in the topic then he normally sounded about anything else. Ino wondered why he was even bothering to stick up for Choji's suggestion they prank Naruto if he didn't care at all about it.

"We will cover for you so you won't get in trouble." Choji pushed with a scowl on his face. He was glaring at Naruto and Ino wondered what the dolt had done to make Choji have a grudge against him. In hindsight she decided not to wonder. Naruto was such a pain in the ass for everyone that it could have been anything really. If anyone deserved to be pranked it was Naruto. After all he was the one constantly causing problems for everyone else!

Ino huffed and thought about it a moment, the two boys sitting beside her atop the small grassy hill looking on expectantly. The entire class was here spread about the training grounds in various states of slothful boredom as they waited for Iruka to call their name and have them perform an obstacle course for grading. It was taking time as some of the obstacles needed to be manual reset for each student, or repaired or replaced if damaged.

Ino had already done her trial, but a good portion of the class still waited their turn… Naruto included. She peered down the small hill to find Naruto flat out on his back snoring right there in the middle of the field unashamed at how he looked or mindful of anything that was going on around him. If she was going to prank him, now would be an excellent time. If Naruto was asleep when she used the technique there would be extremely little resistance and she could easily take over his body for a short time.

"Fine. I'll do it." Ino felt a mean smile spread across her lips at the thought of making Naruto do something truly idiotic for his run of the course. Everyone expected him to screw up anyway, but if she made a nice show of it and got him yelled at, it would just be that much more entertaining. It wasn't as if she was a cruel or mean girl, it was just… well that it was Naruto and 'everyone' disliked him. So it just seemed okay to prank him like this. No one else was going to care or judge her for it… though if she was caught Iruka would have a very stern word for her using her Jutsu on classmates.

"Naruto should be up next." Shikamaru noted and it brought a grin to Choji's face.

"Perfect timing, make it good!" Choji laughed excitedly waiting for the show to begin.

Ino just nodded and took a deep breath centering her mind and formed the seal, though only after making sure Iruka-sensei's attention and everyone else's was not on her. Sakura was looking her way, but looked intrigued, and then smiled. It seemed Sakura too was interested to see what prank was about to be pulled and so Ino let her Shintenshin no Jutsu lose. A stationary target, easy shot.

A small silent 'pop' was felt in the air and Ino's body fell back boneless on the hilltop, Naruto's sleeping body blinking awake. 'Eeeew I actually did it, I'm inside the dolt.' Ino sat up and rubbed her eyes as Naruto. She could feel nothing looming in the back of her mind, Naruto must really have been sleeping and not just napping. With a quick glance back she saw Shikamaru and Choji near her body making subtle gestures to encourage her, she gave a thumbs-up and a Naruto worthy dorky grin. A slight glance Sakura's way showed she was already snickering.

"Naruto, wake up!" Iruka shouted as he turned, then blinked in surprise to find Naruto, with Ino in control, already sitting up and awake. "Oh you're up, good maybe you will take this trial seriously this time. Too the starting line, now!" Iruka commented then barked a command.

" Iruka-sensei!" Ino beamed and tried to hold back her amusement as she hopped up and dashed to the starting line. She had already run this as herself; doing it as Naruto would be easy… and she knew a few places she could really make Naruto look bad. A breath, a grin, and she drew on Naruto's chakra ready to start. Huh?

Ino blinked as something felt off about Naruto. Well maybe not off, but… familiar? That was strange. She couldn't put her finger on what was so familiar about being in someone else's body; it was like putting on someone's shoes… it was never a perfect fit. But this, somehow Naruto felt like a good fit. It started to bother her so much she completely missed the starting shout and brought a chorus of laughter when Iruka snapped at her telling her to stop daydreaming and get on with the course.

'Ha, I didn't think about that one, but it worked out in my favor!' Ino grinned as she was already 'accidently' making a fool of Naruto. The first part of the course was just a straight dash at a pair of distant logs which flung blunted kunai at her. Ino had effortlessly swayed about their trajectories on her pass, but Naruto was not graceful or even intelligent. So she gave a loud battle cry and rushed head long in with her arms drawn up in a seal… that did nothing other then 'trying' to look cool and failing.

'Ouch!' Ino winced as a few of the kunai grazed, tearing small gouges out of the sleeve and legs of Naruto's jumpsuit. It was the Kunai that stuck her squarely in the shoulder that had made her wince and Iruka slap his forehead in dismay while ridiculing Naruto every step of the way.

"You idiot, if that was poisoned you would be dead! Don't just run at them, dodge!" Iruka's fury causing the gathered students to explode in laughter. Had Iruka not been so focused on Naruto's course he might have snapped at them to not laugh, but he was too distracted to even notice his students pointing and jeering at Naruto.

'No wonder Naruto can't do anything; his Chakra control is soooo bad!' Ino groaned as she was actually straining to pull even a minimum amount of useable chakra out for the leaping tree limbs section of the course. She had not planned to mess up here, she wanted to get to the end of the course and make a big show of failure… but try as she might she could hardly control enough of Naruto's Chakra to even leap far enough between the tree branches to catch the next one.

"Damn it, who moved theses apart! Someone moved the tree's apart Iruka-sensei!" Ino shouted for effect as she not only completely missed landing on a branch, but had to grab it desperately with her arms and pull herself back up. The students were rolling on the ground with laughter as Iruka's face was so red it might have exploded. Endless shouts of frustration and annoyance were thrown at Naruto as Ino pushed on and finally dropped down to the final ground section of the course.

'This isn't really as fun as I thought it would be though…' Ino felt herself frowning inside as she actually struggled to pass the course. There really had been no reason to pull this prank; Naruto would have had a hard enough time completing it anyway. It was kind of a slap to the face to realize despite Naruto being a dork and seeming to never take anything seriously, he really was trying his best. After all it was taking her best just to progress through the course with Naruto's body, it wouldn't have been any easier for Naruto himself.

'Running out of time…' Ino note as she felt the fatigue gripping her mind. The Shintenshin no Jutsu could only last so long at her current skill level. Also she felt a stirring in the back of her mind, movement, but not wakefulness yet. Naruto was beginning to emerge, not that it mattered. She was sure he would never know she was here, and if he did feel anything upon wakening, it might be confused for something left over from a dream.

'Now for the finally…' Ino burst through a row of bush's as fake explosive notes rung out behind her in the forest she vacated for the stretch of open field that lead back to the start and finish line. Between her and it was a small murky pond with a narrow two inch wide board crossing from one side to the other.

'Forgive me Naruto, this is going to hurt.' She was already wincing as she recklessly ran on hollering dramatically for effect. Everyone watched as she reached the narrow plank, Iruka was telling Naruto to slow down, she didn't. She got halfway across before her foot slipped, the plank purposefully slippery, and her other foot went with it… on opposite sides of the board. Bracing herself mentally for impact Ino was thankful the mental link was almost completely faded with everything already feeling numb to her.

Impact. There was a horrified silence from everyone, a long pregnant absence of any sound until with a great intake of air. "oooooh!" Like a wave crashing upon a shore everyone exploded in laugher, sympathy, or outright disbelief that Naruto had literally just fallen on the log in the most terrible way a boy could ever have.

Ino blinked mentally, nothing. She had felt no significant pain from the impact, discomfort sure. But nothing even akin to what she had expected it to feel like for boys who got injured there. Playing it out anyway she grabbed herself and teetered sideways till she fell off the plank right into the pond. The sound of laughter muffled as the water swallowed her up. Confusion ran ramped in Ino's mind, but as Naruto woke 'it' hit her like she had been stabbed in the back. 'No way…' Ino thought as the link shattered.

In a blink Ino was back in her own body, but perhaps a second or two sooner than Shikamaru and Choji would have liked. She stared up with a distant drowsy look to find both boys looking guilty as sin, sitting on either side of her, with a hand each on one of her breasts. Okay, NOW it made sense why the two had been so adamant for her to pull the prank.

"Uh… Um." They sweat and sheepishly retracted their hands. Ino felt her eye twitch. Okay… she could deal with this. A few moments later she was walking away from the pair as sharp bright red hand prints sprouted on their cheeks. She would have liked to feel more upset or betrayed that the prank had been for her and not Naruto, but having a pair of pervy boys cop a feel while she was out seemed such a trivial matter compared to the mind shattering truth she had just discovered about Naruto.

Looking to the pond Naruto waded there looking confused as hell while being chewed out by a truly furious Iruka. Soon enough Naruto was shouting back and the two ended up just glaring at each other before Iruka told Naruto just to go home for the day… he had to anyway for clean cloths. Naruto just scuffed childishly like he always did when he got in trouble, thrust his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit, and marched off home with stiff angry shoulders.

"That was priceless, was that really all you?" Ino found Sakura beside her suddenly, snickering at Naruto's misfortune. It stabbed Ino in the gut to realize just ten minutes ago she would have felt the exact same as Sakura. But knowing the truth… she could find no amusement in what she had just done. Refusing to answer, Sakura took it as a provocation of their rivalry and stormed off without another word so not to start another fight between them.

Ino felt sick and a small bout of vertigo tried to swamp her mind with dizziness. The more she thought about it, the more it affected her. How? How could no one know!? Why did no one know? Why was it a secret? Why, why even why!? Ino grit her teeth, clichéd her fists, and eyes squinting with her turmoil. This didn't make any sense to her, the least of which, why she cared at all? And…

Why did Naruto being a girl, make her want to cry?

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 **Please feel free to leave comment or review! The more people I see with an interest in this story, the more motivation I'll have to keep pushing out chapters for everyone to enjoy. Thank you for reading.**


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